I just finished reading one of the most haunting books I've ever read.

[scarletwoman]

I have no idea if it would appeal to anyone else here, but I just have to mention it.

The book is Burial Rites by Hannah Kent. The story takes place in early 19th century rural Iceland, and is based on an actual historic event; the last judicial execution to ever take place in Iceland.

On January 12th, 1830 a woman, Agnes Magnusdottir, was beheaded with an axe by Court order, after having been found guilty of murder by the Danish Crown, which controlled Iceland at that time. The judicial proceedings are a matter of historical record.

The author, Hannah Kent, is an Australian who spent a year living in Iceland. She somehow came across some information about this event, became intrigued with the story, and spent the next 10 years exhaustively researching everything she could find about the execution, the woman, and the crime for which she was executed.

The novel follows the final months of Agnes's life - while the Icelandic officials wait for the final word from Denmark for approval of her execution. Iceland at that time has no jails, so she is housed with a minor regional official at his family farm in the meantime.

From the jacket blurb:

http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/k/hannah-kent/burial-rites.htm
Set against Iceland's stark landscape, Hannah Kent brings to vivid life the story of Agnes, who, charged with the brutal murder of her former master, is sent to an isolated farm to await execution.

Horrified at the prospect of housing a convicted murderer, the family at first avoids Agnes. Only Tóti, a priest Agnes has mysteriously chosen to be her spiritual guardian, seeks to understand her. But as Agnes's death looms, the farmer's wife and their daughters learn there is another side to the sensational story they've heard.

Riveting and rich with lyricism, BURIAL RITES evokes a dramatic existence in a distant time and place, and asks the question, how can one woman hope to endure when her life depends upon the stories told by others?

I felt utterly swallowed up by this novel - the descriptions of the landscape, Icelandic farm life, the gradually unfolding backstory of Agnes, and the interactions of the family around her were so totally compelling. The writing is gorgeous and sensual - you smell what it was like to be confined in a turf house over an Icelandic winter - and you find yourself helplessly hoping along with Agnes that somehow her foreordained fate might be averted. I was literally in tears by the final pages.

It's grim, it's bleak, it's awful - yet the writing carries you along non-stop, like a stream rushing down a mountain. It's a stunning book, and I'm so glad I read it. It's a story will stay with me for all the years I have left.